112. Apocalypse Restoration

In order to re-establish the territory of South Vietnam, after the war, Zhu Youxiao decided to meet Mo Jingkuan and the kings of Siam, Champang, Chenla, and Huaying in Guangzhou, and jointly signed the "Treaty of Guangzhou", officially assigning the land north of the Ma River and Cam Ranh Bay to the Ming Dynasty, Ma Jiang to Quang Binh as the Mo Dynasty of South Vietnam, Quang Zhi and Quang Nam were managed by Hua Ying, and the land of the original Hua Ying and Nam Pan was re-incorporated into the city. Ming officials and merchants were allowed to move freely within the borders of each country, using Ming weights and measures and currency. The tributary system was clarified, unauthorized contact with Europeans was prohibited, and the Ming army protected the overseas interests of various countries and jointly fought against foreign forces.

After the treaty was signed, all countries got benefits, and naturally happily thanked the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youxiao took the opportunity to set up a banquet in Yuexiu Palace to entertain his vassals, and walked to the king of Zhenla, Jizheta II, with the strength of wine, and said sideways

"I heard that the king loves the country and the country more than the beauty, and he does not hesitate to use the land as a dowry for this, which makes me sigh to myself. Although the territory of the Ming Empire is vast, not an inch is superfluous. ”

This happened in the first year of the Apocalypse, when Nguyen Phuc Nguyen Nguyen Van married his daughter Nguyen Ngoc Van to Actually Rah in order to expand his territory, and Gi Zhe Tha II gifted the Plyango region to Quang Viet and allowed them to establish towns there, and Nguyen Phuc Nguyen's power was greatly enhanced. Later, in the war with Champang, Chenla sent troops to support Nguyen Phuc Yuan, and finally split Champa into three countries, Hua Anh, Nam Phan, and Champang, and Nguyen Phuc Yuan began to gradually encroach on the land and population of the south.

At this time, Zhu Youxiao brought up the old matter again, and Ji Zheta II repented of his mistakes, and hurriedly knelt down to plead guilty, saying that Ruan Yuwan and his children had been put to death. In order to make up for his mistakes, he was willing to follow the precedent of the Ming Dynasty's marriage with Siam and choose a princess of the right age to marry.

Zhu Youxiao thought to himself that the strategic purpose of South Vietnam's self-defense and counterattack war had been achieved, and there was no need to have too much to do with other countries, as long as the Ming Dynasty occupied the north of the Ma River and Cam Ranh Bay, it could firmly control the entire Indochina Peninsula by virtue of its strong military strength and commercial activities.

Afterwards, Zhu Youxiao returned to Beijing with the aura of victory, and the officials and people in the city spontaneously went to Deshengmen to greet him. In the face of this sudden scene, Zhu Youxiao was happy and knew that his position in this era was already very stable, and he could implement some sharper reform measures and start to lay out in advance for the republic. For this reason, he waved his hand to signal everyone to be quiet, and shouted loudly

"Long live the people, long live the Chinese nation!"

Since ancient times, heroes have been born in troubled times, and all will have the famous saying that "there will be a king in five hundred years" has become the fate of Chinese history, heroes can change the situation, but there are still many capable generals and unknown people behind them. Zhu Youxiao knew that his achievements were due to the single-mindedness of the government and the opposition and the lives of the military and civilians, and the honor belonged to the entire nation. In order to allow the common people to share the dividends of the war and the benefits of foreign trade, he decided to cancel the taxes paid by the peasants in the two capitals and 13 provinces in the interior of the country, so as to recuperate and resume production as soon as possible.

Zhu Youxiao can be said to be the first monarch in history to shout long live the people, which was like thunder on the ground at that time, frightening the surrounding officials at a loss. Fortunately, there were still many people in the distance who did not hear clearly, and their cheers quickly drowned out the emotion. In fact, there were a total of 23 dynasties and more than 300 emperors in ancient China, no matter how poor and extravagant they were during their lifetimes, or how they built a huge 10,000-year-old auspicious land for themselves, they all lay in one place without exception, and their merits and demerits are their own justice. It can be seen that the title of long live is nothing more than self-deception, but the Chinese nation is constantly integrating, developing, and growing, extending from the Yellow River valley to the entire east.

Under this blind cult of personality, Zhu Youxiao calmly analyzed the current situation and decided that this was the best time to deepen reform. He first ordered Wei Zhongxian and the Wei Dynasty to sweep away the southeast finances controlled by the remnants of Donglin with a thunderous force, and to return the commercial tax, mining tax, and salt, tea, porcelain and iron to the celebrant supervisor, and then promote those new talents with military merits or overseas experience. These people are all upstarts in political interests, ambitious, easy to accept new affairs, and supporters and executors of this restoration.

In view of the importance of agriculture to a country with a large population, the first item of the Restoration was to persuade agriculture to flourish. Since the implementation of a whip law, all taxes have been clearly calculated in silver taels and collected by the imperial court in a unified manner, putting an end to the bad habit of local officials being exploited layer by layer, not only the annual income of the imperial court has increased year by year, but also the burden of the common people has also been reduced a lot; this year Zhu Youxiao has issued an order to abolish the peasants' taxes, which is undoubtedly the icing on the cake for agricultural development. In addition, foreign crops such as corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, and beans have also begun to be popularized throughout the country, greatly increasing the output of the land. On this basis, the cultivated land under the name of the common people was replanted with mulberry trees and other cash crops in proportion, which was levied by the imperial court according to a unified official price, which opened up fertile soil for mercantilism, greatly accelerated the development of handicrafts and commerce in the Ming Dynasty, and could obtain more profits in world trade.

In second place is education, a century-old plan that Zhu Youxiao has never relaxed, but the laws of history still have to be followed. If it was a small test to change the rigid eight-strand essay to Shen Lun and Xing Test, then this time Zhu Youxiao is ready to insert a sharp sword in the key point of the feudal system. He first established simplified Chinese and Mandarin as the official standard in the form of legislation, then abolished all private schools and academies, and the state built places where compulsory education was introduced, rewrote teaching materials, recruited new talents, and began the initial enlightenment of modern thought.

The third is military reform, which makes foreign expansion a national policy, and maintains the combat capability of the armed forces and protects overseas interests by fighting a foreign war on a regular basis. The military generals are responsible for military training, civil servants are responsible for political and ideological education, and the military aircraft department issues combat missions to ensure that the army can obey the command and be loyal to the motherland and the people. In terms of firearms research and development, we will ensure that the equipment generation, the experimental generation, the design generation, and the pre-research generation will ensure that the firearms of the Ming Dynasty are ahead of the West.

Although cold weapons have gradually withdrawn from the battlefield, but the Ming Dynasty scholars and meritorious deeds for the sword love has not faded, after all, the sword is a gentleman in the weapon, a carrier of a nation's martial arts and admiration, and it is also the weapon of the king of the world. To this end, Xu Guangqi and others continued to improve the smelting process and improve the performance of stainless steel, in addition to creating sharper swords, they also added bayonets to the front end of muskets to further improve the flexibility of combat.

The fourth is to raise the status of merchants and allow those children of merchants who have completed compulsory education to take the imperial examinations. Since Zhu Youxiao has always had a firm grip on foreign trade activities, the merchants here mainly refer to those workers and laborers who have shares. With the development of mercantilism, modern capitalist silk weaving workshops have appeared in the Jiangnan area, and in order to curb this system, which tends to exacerbate the gap between the rich and the poor, Zhu Youxiao introduced the trade union system for the first time to ensure the interests of the working class.

In fact, the main purpose of this reform was to introduce the working class into the construction of the country, to become a new political force, and to help Zhu Youxiao resist the monopoly of the scholars on the bureaucracy and the corruption of capitalism on the scholars. People often say that the dynasty is the most backbone of a dynasty, Chongzhen would rather die than retreat to Nanjing, but after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, Dolgon was able to crisscross the Central Plains with less than 100,000 warriors of the Eight Banners, slaughtering the city, forcibly shaving hair, modifying clothing, and burning books. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, only Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants and the common people suffered, and the scholars and doctors soon turned into traitors and lackeys, and they were called the Manchu and Han families.

After thinking about it, I think that the changes in the Donglin Party were mainly because they had become representatives of the bourgeoisie and had become seriously detached from the masses, and after Chongzhen came to power, in order to gain their support, he was forced to abolish the commercial tax and the mining tax, and the burden of military salaries was added to the peasants. The lessons of history are profound, and modern China is even more bloody, the martyrs explored many ways to save the country, and finally relied on hammers and sickles to achieve victory.